{"id":5902,"date":"2016-06-07T15:42:23","date_gmt":"2016-06-07T15:42:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.artinfo.com\/blunotes\/?p=5902"},"modified":"2016-06-07T15:42:23","modified_gmt":"2016-06-07T15:42:23","slug":"help-honor-and-extend-david-bakers-towering-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/2016\/06\/07\/help-honor-and-extend-david-bakers-towering-legacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Help Honor and Extend David Baker's Towering Legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"photo<\/a>
photo by Kendall Reeves<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nThe story of David Baker<\/strong>, who died at 84 on March 26, is indelible for many reasons.
\nAs a composer, educator, trombonist and cellist, he was named both a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts in 2000 and a Living Jazz Legend by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 2007.
\nI was first drawn to Baker\u2019s music through the 1987 premiere of \u201cEllingtones,\u201d<\/em> which featured the New York Philharmonic, conducted by James DePreist, and tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon, in a trio with pianist Tommy Flanagan and bassist Ron Carter. I\u2019d never heard jazz in such a classical setting before.
\nAnd I\u2019d never heard\u00a0a musical voice like Baker\u2019s as composer. The experience sent me backward and then forward through Baker\u2019s recordings, and it opened my mind.
\nBaker\u2019s bold creativity was evident from the start of his career, and especially through his work as trombonist and composer on a series of groundbreaking recordings by pianist and composer George Russell. His resilience and persistence was singularly inspiring. As Margalit Fox noted in a New York Times obituary:<\/p>\n

\u00a0Mr. Baker\u2019s laurels are all the more noteworthy in that he had been forced to reinvent his musical career three times: first when he was barred from making his way as a classical trombonist because of his race; second when, as a jazzman, he had to forsake the trombone after a devastating jaw injury; and third when he was driven from a teaching job because he had married a white woman.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And yet Baker leapt over any and all barriers, and ultimately combined all his interests and aspirations. He helped articulate an understanding of jazz as an expression of Black culture, and, as Fox notes, he \u201chelped bring jazz studies into the academy at a time when the ivory tower considered the field infra dig.\u201d
\nIn fact, Baker\u2019s greatest legacy is perhaps expressed through the courses of study and consciousness he established at Indiana University\u2019s Jacobs School of Music, where he was distinguished professor.<\/em>
\nNow, friends of Baker, with the support of his widow, are putting together a recording titled\u00a0Basically Baker Volume 2: The Big Band Music of David Baker <\/em><\/strong><\/a>featuring the Buselli-Wallarab Jazz Orchestra.\u00a0 All proceeds generated by sales of the recording will go directly to the\u00a0David N. Baker Scholarship Fund<\/strong>\u00a0to provide a financial means for prospective students to attend the Jacobs School of Music Jazz Studies Program.\u00a0The CD will be released by Patois Records. An added feature of this project is the rerelease of \u201cBasically Baker, Vol I,\u201d recorded in 2005, which made Downbeat Magazine\u2019s \u201c100 best Recordings of the Decade\u201d list in 2010.
\nTo support this worthy project, go here<\/a>\u2014and do it now: The indiegogo campaign ends June 12.<\/strong>
\nHere’s my brief interview with Brent Wallarab, who played under Baker’s direction with the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra and teaches at the Jacobs School, about his mentor\u2019s legacy.
\nWhat made Baker unique?<\/strong>
\nDavid had an amazing ability to effectively and passionately communicate about jazz to\u00a0everyone regardless of experience, background, or environment:, from audiences with no musical background to academic scholars, from the most shy freshman college student to the President of the United States. When it came to speaking about and teaching this music he loved so much, David could reach anyone, inspiring them no matter their station in life.
\nHow did he affect your personal musicianship or scholarship?<\/strong>
\nLike many others before me and after me, David saw my potential before I saw it myself. While in grad school in the late 80’s I became obsessed with Duke Ellington and the solo styles of his great trombone players and as an arranger I transcribed as much Ellington as I could. When David became director of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra in 1991, he called on me to be in the trombone section due to my ability to recreate those styles and assigned me the role as chief transcriber for the band. I found myself performing and transcribing at a higher level that I could have ever imagined, all because of David’s certainty that I was up to the task.
\nWhat will this CD and this scholarship add to jazz culture?<\/strong>
\nWhile his classical work is widely recorded and performed internationally, it is a strange irony that David Baker’s jazz big band writing rarely sees the light of day beyond the Indiana University campus.\u00a0 With this recording and the reissue of Volume 1, we want the rest of the jazz world to know what so many of us who have come through the program at Indiana University know\u2014that David Baker\u00a0has a truly brilliant and unique voice as a writer for jazz big band. In pursuing this project, not only will we be introducing more listeners to his amazing music, but will be helping the next generation of studying the program he developed 50 years ago. We see these recordings as maintaining the legacy of a great musician and teacher while looking to the future\u00a0by investing in the next generation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The story of David Baker, who died at 84 on March 26, is indelible for many reasons. As a composer, educator, trombonist and cellist, he was named both a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts in 2000 and a Living Jazz Legend by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Help Honor and Extend David Baker's Towering Legacy”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[407,408],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5902"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}